Honestly I didn't think it would have ever happened to me. I always heard stories, but knew that it would never happen to me so long as I never walked down the street alone and in the dark. This is the kind of thing that complete strangers do. I was wrong, and this is my story.I thought I would marry him, I knew I was going to, I loved him. Over the course of a year-and-a-half, we had gotten to know each other. We had started out as best friends. We would talk about everything: sex, relationships, everything that we went through, we would talk about it. We started to hang out for hours at a time. We would hang out late into the night, watch movies, play video games, bake together, and just have a good time. So one night, he asked me to spend the night at his house. Of course I didn't see a problem with this, he's my best friend, my closest confidant. I felt safer with no one else. Now I had never been kissed before. I wanted to wait for Mr. Right. And he had even told me that he would not kiss me until we were engaged. We, of course, had talked about marriage. We were joking at first but then it changed. We were watching a movie at his house and he turned to me and said, "I really think I want to kiss you now". I had told him that I had wanted to kiss him a long time before, but of course as I said earlier, he wanted to wait. So I said yes. This is where things went downhill. As soon as I said yes, something in his brain flipped and my yes translated to yes to whatever he wanted. The kiss turned into him sticking his tongue down my throat, to his hands wandering all over my body. Of course I didn't understand anything about kissing or anything, so I was very confused, and I asked him to slow down take a break. I could've been on mute for all the good that that did. I got panicky and tried to push him off as he kept going further and further and further. I kept telling him to stop. Stop! He just pushed me harder and harder until he slammed me into the headboard. Hard. At this point I felt true terror. I knew at that moment the harder I pushed, the more he would hurt me. This went on for hours, I tried to leave several more times. But he was so much stronger than me. I went somewhere else after a while in my head. Someplace dull. Someplace safe...... At one point he stopped and looked at me. "Gabe, I'm so sorry. I can't believe..... I'm so sorry please forgive me. Gabe.... You can't tell anyone." Now, you have to realize as the victim, especially when you've been assaulted by someone you know and cared about, you'll be in a state of denial. Your mind almost protects the person that hurts you. Why would that person hurt me if they loved and cared for me? Well. They just wouldn't. So therefore, it's not their fault. They didn't mean to. They just... went too far. I said all of those things to him. "It's not your fault". "It's OK". "Don't feel bad". "I still love you". Apparently, convinced I was telling the truth, he told me that we should get some sleep. Well of course I couldn't fall asleep, I was so troubled, felt so empty and yet so tired, but I couldn't fall asleep. What would happen if I fell asleep?Things took a turn for the worse here. He thought I was asleep by that point, and proceeded to do more things. I don't want to talk about it. But his apology didn't mean anything at that point. By the time that I got home, the following morning, I was in a dull monotonous blur. My sister found me. At that point, I just felt disgust. Complete and utter shame. I felt so dirty, there were so many showers that couldn't clean me. I was dirty on the inside. Three days. That's the time it took for me to process what happened and yet I was still in strong denial. It took even longer for me to stop waking up in the middle of the night with a nightmare of what had happened. I was so terrified of seeing him ever again. It was not okay what had happened. No means no, end of story.The point of this story is to make people more aware that sexual assault doesn't always happen to people by strangers. If you know someone who was sexually assaulted, and/or someone comes to you with this information, you need to understand that it is not the victims fault. It's never the victim's fault. It could not have been prevented. That's what sexual assault means. I don't care what they were wearing. I don't care what the situation sounds like. Or anything... bottom line is that it wasn't their fault, and they need to know that. They will think it's their fault and it will take a while for them to understand it isn't. You may suggest that they go to the police with the information and prosecute this person. However, if they don't want to do it, don't insist on it. Having to relive this story in court, and seeing the person in court, reliving it to cops, to lawyers, to anybody may not always be beneficial, and it is up to the person who was assaulted to make the decision. Do not insist because you know it's for the best. It is not always. The victim will often times never want to see this person ever again. Which is to be understandable, and oftentimes it destroys them just to see the car that they drove, to see the clothes they were wearing. It can trigger them into into a horrible flashbacks. The only cure for this is prayer and lots and lots of time. You have to be patient. Be patient, be prayerful, and be there for them.